


Mermaids Singing

by Andraste



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-18
Updated: 2004-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andraste/pseuds/Andraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyta has heard the mermaids singing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mermaids Singing

**Author's Note:**

> Set between _The Gathering_ and _Divided Loyalties_, but spoils both _Divided Loyalties_ and _Passing Through Gethsemane_, as well as some other late Season Three Kosh and Lyta stuff. Written for bloodraven77 in the B5 ficathon. Thanks to Sabine for looking it over.
> 
> The title is a quote from either John Donne or T.S. Elliot. It probably matters which it is.

The shower in her prison cell - and that's what it is, no matter how blandly nice the appointments are - never seems warm enough. Occasionally she wonders if they did that deliberately. It's one of the things that makes her push to get out of here, although not in the way they want her to. She knows that she should be grateful to have real water at all, but it's not much of a consolation when it doesn't rise above lukewarm. Sometimes Lyta thinks that she could stand all of it better if she could just get a nice, hot shower.

Tonight her head throbs from the probes and her throat feels raw from explaining, over and over, that she's told them everything she knows about Vorlons. They decided to drug her with something new today, which left her feeling groggy. She had no appetite for her nutritionally balanced and tasteless dinner, and none for the approved entertainment, either. She doesn't know what's worse, the relentless questioning, or their faultless politeness afterwards. It would almost be easier if they'd treat her like the tainted traitor they seem to believe her to be.

Lyta isn't sure how long they'll be content with her denials. If they thought they could cut the secret out of her brain, they'd have started by now. The Corp know nothing about Vorlons, and she's their only potential source of information – in a sense, she can understand their desperation. Telepaths hate not having full access to information almost as much as they hate having information constantly forced on them. She tries not to think about what they'll do with her when they get bored.

It's still early, but she's eager to get to bed. Lyta rubs her hair half-dry without much enthusiasm and ends up lying down with it still damp. Who the hell cares if her pillow gets wet? Her mattress is comfortable enough, at least, and the pain in her head eases as soon as she shuts her eyes. She orders the lights off with a word.

Because she's still a member of Psi Corps, not someone who's chosen prison over drugs or membership, her captivity is relatively benign. She has a small room to herself, access to outside sources of information and entertainment provided she doesn't try to contact anyone, enough free time to get bored and tense between interrogations. They probably think that if they wait long enough, she'll give them what they want out of boredom alone. The desire for freedom has become an almost physical itch.

It's hard to imagine, sometimes, that she used to think of the Corp as her family. She was born into it, and she can't ever remember missing a biological family. She used to be proud, in a distant kind of way, of her genetic heritage, but not knowing those people directly never bothered her. She remembers that being trained as a telepath always felt like a big adventure, being inducted into a special club that made her a special person. As she got older, she got more cynical, but the basic loyalty was always there. Now she sees the Corps for what they really are: bullies who will rip her mind apart to get at what they think she has, then throw her away.

She couldn't betray him, even if she wanted to.

The box in her mind only opens at moments like this, when she's alone and relatively at peace. The rest of the time, it's as if these memories, these sensations, don't exist. All that's left is a sense of loss and longing she's never been able to articulate. She doesn't want to share the secret, even the absence of the secret, with anyone.

When she's alone, she opens the box and Kosh swims out.

He greets her warmly, and she feels the anxiety and muted fear drain out of her almost instantly as he becomes part of her conscious mind, freeing her from the tension of the day. In the beginning, he'd communicate with her in English, but she could feel the frustration using such a limited form of communication caused him. Now they don't need any words, just strings of images, feelings, sounds that only she can hear.

She smiles and sighs as she feels her skin begin to tingle, heat spreading through her tired body, refreshing and relaxing at the same time. Nothing Lyta's experienced with another human being comes close to what the shadow of the Vorlon she carries inside gives to her – the sense of security, the peace, the pleasure. She'd never been one of those perverts who were into sex with aliens; and she'd turned down the only one who ever asked her without a second thought. But now she carries a part of one inside her, and she can't understand how she did without it for so many years.

She moans as her skin begins to buzz, moves her hands to unbutton the front of her pajamas. Sometimes she simply lies back and lets Kosh do all of the work, but now she doesn't feel tired at all. She runs her fingers around her breasts in circles of ever decreasing size until she's caressing her nipples.

She feels a hardness growing inside her that she knows can't really be there, but it sure _feels_ real. At first, it was the strangest sensation she'd ever felt, being filled from the inside out instead of the other way around, but now she relished it. As it started to pulse she let her hands fall limp by her sides, breath coming in gasps. Kosh is singing to her, but she's past understanding the words, focused solely on the sound.

There's never a single moment of climax like the one experienced in human love-making, just a gradually escalating spiral to a plateau of ecstasy, followed by a slow descent that feels like sinking into warm water.

He never leaves her afterwards, but whispers to her for as long as she can stay awake, telling her about his homeworld, about the love and acceptance his people will give to her when she goes there. She can still feel his voice calling her, pulling at her like the moon pulls at the tide. She has to get away from here, see Kosh again, make it to Vorlon space.

For now, though, she closes her eyes and just enjoys the song.


End file.
